Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dear Luggers, While we are waiting the long wait for the digital back from Leica for the R8 and R9, I thought I would share with you some of my recent experience using Leica R lenses on several Canon digital bodies. Longer term luggers will recall my experiments with R lenses on the Canon D60, results of which are available on Andrew Nemeth's web site. In the last couple of weeks I have purchased (and returned for credit) a Canon 10D. In many ways this is a more accomplished SLR than my D60 - much better auto focusing in low light with canon EF lenses and higher film speeds - - more accurate colour with the Adobe RGB mode, BUT the camera front focused with Canon EOS AF lenses and was really impossible to focus accurately with wide angle Leica lenses. It did "okay" (that is I did "okay") with longer Leica lenses, but with my Elmarit 28 R the focussing was consistently terrible. Having taken back the 10D I was given the chance to try a D300 (the Canon digital Rebel) over the weekend and it is in many ways a formidable machine for its price range - - almost equal to the 10D - except for a lack of manual controls - and that is the camera's weak point with Leica lenses. The body I used consistently over exposed frames taken with Leica lenses because the camera automatically defaulted to center weighted metering (I "think" - didn't have the instruction book with me) and tended to misread the scene. With the 10D and the D60 you could choose spot, matrix or center weighted metering for different light situations and with both cameras exposures with Leica lenses were right "on the money" when using the cameras in Aperture Preferred mode. This was not true for the D300 that I used. It consistently over exposed when using my Leica 28 R in AP mode in any picture where the main subject was off center. This is too bad because the focusing accuracy for the 28 Elmarit was better than with the 10D which I briefly had. So, now my strategy is to keep and use the obsolete Canon D60 until the EOS3 based digital is announced next year. Or the Leica digital back, maybe........... Cheers, Howard Hong Kong - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html